Volkswagen And The Failure Of Corporate Social Responsibility

The Volkswagen case represents above all an absolute failure in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The company deliberately set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control—a stratagem known at the highest levels—with the aim of giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world’s number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars; meanwhile it was poisoning the planet.

We are talking about an engine here, a lump of metal, not some interpretation or shade of meaning. Volkswagen did all it could to hide the fact that its diesel engines were highly contaminating. How can the head of CSR deny he knew anything about what was going on? Either that person wasn’t doing their job, or they were colluding. The conclusion can only be that for Volkswagen, CSR is a marketing exercise.

But the sad truth is that this conclusion applies to the vast majority of companies: a head of CSR is appointed, given an air of respectability, and runs a department the job of which is to keep the company’s image clean, despite the filth it is mired in, as is clearly the case with Volkswagen. Once again, we have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing that companies can and will regulate themselves, when of course the sordid reality is that as their actions show, beyond the occasional symbolic act, their sole objective is to maximize profit, and by any means.

Volkswagen decided that it didn’t matter if its cars poisoned the planet by emitting 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, as long as doing so allowed it to become the world’s leading car maker. The parallels with the tobacco industry are notable, particularly as regards the lies that we are prepared to believe about the effects of our actions: in the same way that may smokers still tell themselves that the smoke they inhale is not dangerous, millions of car drivers prefer to continue belching out dangerous gases so long as their vehicle runs faster and better.

The only thing that Volkswagen drivers are worried about at the moment is: “What am I going to have to do to my car, and is it going to make it slower? Well, if I don’t have to by law, then I won’t.” Because we don’t see the steady poisoning of our planet, we are more concerned about not being able to pull away more quickly at the lights. We’re simply not prepared to pay that price for a cleaner environment. We would rather have a faster car than do something to reduce the tens of thousands of deaths from respiratory diseases each year.

The problem with CSR pretty much comes down to this: we are asking companies to self-regulate. Furthermore, we must be doing something wrong when the majority of people see CSR as superfluous, a luxury that mustn’t get in the way of making profits or giving us that delicious feeling of acceleration when we put our foot down. Most heads of CSR know this reality, and they know which side their bread is buttered on.

The Volkswagen case shows in stark contrast that we must reinvent CSR. The people who head these departments must be made responsible for their companies’ actions, even if that means going to jail. These people will have to be very well paid in return for assuming this responsibility, as well as having budgets that will allow them to develop systems to find out what really goes on in their companies. The Volkswagen crisis highlights the failings of capitalism, of a system that has closed its eyes to the reality of the future, and a clearly unsustainable future.

If you’re a head of CSR, you need to ask yourself whether you have any idea what is going on in your company, or whether you are complicit in activities that go directly against your supposed remit. Are you head of window dressing? Are you prepared to lie, to cover up, or even kill people in return for helping your company make more profits? Which is more important to you: the sustainability of your company, or that of the planet? Which is of greater value: tens of thousands of deaths from respiratory disease and cancer, or sitting on the throne of the global automobile industry?

In short, CSR has failed. What has happened at Volkswagen is so important, so real, that it should spark companies to rethink their priorities and just what the job of their CSR department is. They need to ask themselves if something like this could happen in their company, because the answer may well be yes. They need to ask if their company is prepared to cheat, lie and kill people in return for the kind of profits that Volkswagen has made. They need to ask if their board of directors is as irresponsible as Volkswagen’s.

And if they work in CSR and they don’t think that what has happened at Volkswagen merits serious consideration about their own actions, then perhaps the time has come to get out from behind the wheel, be corporately and socially responsible, and let somebody else take over.